GBBO Week 9 - Peanut Salted Caramel and Chocolate Tart

It was the semi-finals this week on the Great British Bake Off – I can’t believe how quickly it’s gone!! This week was all about chocolate and I’ll jump straight to which challenge I was enticed by – the signature, which were chocolate tarts. Although Ian and Tamal’s tarts looked enticing, I was blown away by the sound of it – a combination of peanut, salted caramel and chocolate, encased in chocolate pastry. It got rave reviews from Paul and Mary, and I decided to bake one this weekend. The original recipe is here. One odd ingredient used was tapioca maltodextrin, which converts fats into powders. I unsurprisingly couldn’t find this in my local supermarket, so used chopped nuts instead. I also made a few other adjustments :)

The end result was easily the best tart I have ever made. Although it looks like a lot of work, the only baking required is for the tart base, and after that it is simple assembly. I’d highly recommend giving it a go – unless you’re allergic to peanuts (in which case I’m going to experiment using hazelnuts soon, and see how that works)…

Makes one 24cm square tart.

Ingredients

For the chocolate pastry:

250g plain flour
2 tbsp icing sugar
2 tbsp cocoa powder
140g butter
2 egg yolks
1 tsp lemon juice

For the chocolate ganache:

400ml double cream
400g dark chocolate (minimum 50% cocoa solids)
60g butter

For the salted caramel:

65g soft brown sugar
50g butter
2 tsbp golden syrup
85ml double cream
200g roasted salted peanuts, chopped into small pieces (I briefly pulsed mine in a blender)

For the cinnamon and honey peanut butter:

130g roasted peanuts ( I used salted peanuts that I rinsed and dried to remove excess salt)
1 ½ tbsp flavourless oil (like vegetable oil)
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp ground cinnamon

For the chocolate peanut mousse:

200ml whipping cream
1 ½ tbsp icing sugar
2 tsp cornflour
2 ½ tbsp cinnamon peanut butter (see above)

For the chocolate and peanut butter truffles:

50g chopped nuts
50g icing sugar

For assembly:

cocoa powder (around 3 tbsp)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200c/180c fan/ gas mark 6. Grease the base and sides of a deep 24cm square cake tin.

2. Make the pastry dough. In a large mixing bowl stir together the flour, icing sugar and cocoa powder until an even light brown colour is achieved.

3. Cut the butter into small cubes, and rub into the dry ingredients with your fingertips. Once there are no more clumps of butter, add the egg yolks, lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of cold water. Bring the dough together using your hands, then wrap in cling film and chill for 15 minutes in the fridge.

4. Once chilled, line a surface with cling film, and place your dough on top of it. Cover with another sheet of clingfilm, and roll out the dough to approximately 5mm thickness (big enough to cover the base and go up 5cm of the cake tin's sides. Carefully place in the tin – I found the dough quite crumbly, but patching up the base and sides with spare dough worked great.

5. Prick all over the bottom of the tart with a fork, and cover with a piece greaseproof paper/kitchen foil. Fill with flour (or baking beans if you have them). I find that I always have spare flour to hand so tend to use this.

6. Bake the tart for 15 minutes, then remove the greaseproof paper and flour, and bake for a further 10 minutes. Leave to cool.

7. Make the chocolate ganache. Bring the double cream to the boil in a medium saucepan. In a bowl, break up the dark chocolate into squares, and add the butter. Pour the double cream over the chocolate and butter, and stir until melted. Reserve about 4 tablespoons of the ganache for the truffles, and place in the fridge.

8. Make the peanut salted caramel. In a medium saucepan, warm together the sugar, butter and golden syrup. Once the sugar has dissolved, pour over the double cream and bring to a simmer. Turn off the heat, and transfer to a bowl. Once completely cool, add the chopped salted peanuts.

9. When the pastry base is completely cool, fill with the peanut salted caramel, and place in the fridge to set (around 30 minutes).

10. Make the cinnamon peanut butter. In a blender (I used a NutriBullet), blitz the peanuts until well-ground. Add the honey, cinnamon and oil, and blend until smooth.

11. Make the chocolate peanut butter mousse. Whisk the whipping cream with the icing sugar and cornflour until soft peaks form (when the whisk is removed from the mixture, peaks form that topple at the tip). Fold in half of the chocolate ganache and 2 ½ tablespoons of the cinnamon peanut butter. Spread the mousse over the chilled tart, and place back in the fridge for an hour to set.

12. Make the chocolate truffles. Take spoonfuls of the chilled ganache, and shape into 3 balls. Dip in the chopped nuts, and chill to set.

13. Once the mousse has set, spoon over the remaining chocolate ganache. Chill for 30 minutes to set the ganache fully.

14. Make the peanut butter “truffles”. Use the remaining cinnamon peanut butter to make 2 balls the same size as the chocolate truffles, and coat in icing sugar.

15. To finish the tart, cut out a piece of card or paper 24cm in length, and about 12cm in diameter. Place on top the tart off centre, so that on the right hand side of the tart there is a strip big enough to place the truffles (about 3cm). Dust the surface of the tart with cocoa powder.

16. Remove the card/paper to reveal a neat strip of the tart that has no cocoa powder on it. Place the truffles (alternating chocolate and peanut butter) along the thin strip of tart.

17. Enjoy!